Monday, February 11, 2008

E-Summit 2008

I attended the E Summit for the first time. According to the people who attended the earlier ones, this is the best so far. The turn out was good - estimated at around 350 to 380.

I attended the panel discussion between Sharad and Ashish. The initial talk was something I had heard from both albeit in different settings. Both of them were very candid and frank in the Q&A. Sadly the questions were pretty bad. The worst was when a NITIE professor got into a self promotion mode by asking a question: why can't entrepreneurship be taught from LKG? And then he told us about how they are very successful at doing so at NITIE where all MBA students have 30% grades dependent upon the performance of the company each has to start when they join. Not a bad idea. Just that success is measured using 30 parameters! He should probably refresh his corporate finance basics.

Another self congratulatory question was on how well have the IITians done in both India and abroad. Both panelist shot it down. In summary, IITians of an earlier generation made it to IITs and continued to do well later too because they were hungry. Training at an IIT had little do to with it. Today's IITians don't have the hunger and still have a big attitude problem. As Ashish put it, he doesn't hire from IITs anymore. Pretty damning statement coming from someone who holds a Gold medal from IIT Kanpur.

This is something I completely agree with. The problem at IIMs is even worse. Lot more people with an attitude but not enough competency. I remember giving a project to 5 IIM students (will not name which IIM). Out of the 5, one did well, one was ok, rest three were bad. Sadly the three who didn't do well had more attitude! Similarly, in tech projects given to 5 IIT B students in the same time frame, only one guy had some attitude. And one could even justify it given that he did well.

I would take an IIT guy over an IIM guy anyday given my personal experiences. But the experience of Sharad and Ashish who have seen it for far longer makes me think if I should just look at RECs.

6 comments:

mahesh2k
said...

There were many more poor questions. Actually the event wasn't organised in a very planned manner, though its nice atleast they are organising something like this. It could have been a much better event, had it been planned in better way. I hope they got the lesson and improve it accordingly.An example of the same can be given here. In the session after of 'Scaling Up' which was just after Ashish Gupta's session was poorly moderated and it more so because the moderated wasn't briefed before hand about what exactly he was supposed to do. He started it with marketing of panelists' companies and achievements which took more than 60% of the total session's time.

Ya , Although i am from NIT , i agree the attitude our iitians depict today,there are pros and cons in yesteryears iit and today.the brand iit which exist this is being underutilised now,HOW MANY IITIANS HAVE RECEIVED NOBELS?, I THINK SHOULD BE MORE , iitians are considered to be epitome of technical excellence, then they curse india, ok agreed we have paucity of funds, why can't they galore in other countries as well.

its all about attitude.the valor which exist when they make it to iit fades down the final year...

if this attitude continues ...days are not far when companies will start hiring from b grades to fulfill the apetite.

funniest thing is that i know a guy who graduated from Ipt Saharanpur , which even does not comes under iit, now they swiftly write on their cv'as IIT roorkee and demand equal salary at par other iits not even iit-r.